


Your Words They Make Just a Whisper

by midnightblack07



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightblack07/pseuds/midnightblack07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<i>You're pretty enough,</i> her mother had said. <i>Not the prettiest, but you'll do well...</i>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Words They Make Just a Whisper

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sister_wife's Nostalgia Fest 2011 prompt _keep me in on the thinnest of all threads..._ This fic focuses on a character that will be introduced in season 2, and contains spoilers for events that take place in books 2  & 3 (ACoK and ASoS).

~*~

  


_Your words they make just a whisper,  
Your face is so unclear;  
I try to pay attention,  
and the words just disappear..."_  
 _Epiphany_ -Staind

  


~*~

 _You're pretty enough,_ her mother had said. _Not the prettiest, but you'll do well._

 _Certainly not pretty enough for a king, though_ was left unsaid, a given assumption if ever there was one. After all, if Cersei Lannister for all her fabled beauty could barely hold a king, what chance did Jeyne Westerling and her negligible prettiness have?

She certainly didn't feel pretty enough for _this_ king, the layers of dirt and grime that obscured the sharper details of his appearance could do little to dissuade her (or anyone, she's sure) of that.

He was supported by two of his men as he was nearly carried into the castle, his legs no more than two limp attachments to his body. She heard words like _gaping_ and _fatal_ whispered hurriedly among his men, heard the booming demands for a maester's immediate attention--a king was never to be left waiting after all (that much the North and the South had in common).  


She followed the maester's footsteps, wanted to put all those days and nights she spent under his guidance to good use (wanted to ensure that their lives would not be bartered for the king's should their hospitality have failed him).  


It was even worse than she'd imagined, a long gash across the length of his left shoulder and a fever that left him as far from the waking world as any living man could get. The beast beside his bed unsettled her, its nuzzle still crimson with the blood of the men it maimed and killed ( _their_ men), but she paid it no mind aside from the distance she kept.  


The maester stitched up the wound as best he could while the blood and the pulling of skin did things to her stomach that she paid as much mind as she did the beast.  


When the maester left she stayed for reasons that, until this day, she cannot place. Compassion, curiosity, whatever it may have been, it kept her sitting vigil at his bedside that night, her hands clutching the fabric of her dress to keep from shaking.  


She may not have been the prettiest, but she was going to be the bravest.  


~*~

  


"The first time he opened his eyes she had the palm of her hand pressed against his forehead checking the progress of his fever.  


She didn't recoil in the face of his stare, though the blueness of his eyes startled her and their focus disconcerted her. When she finally did pull away, it was only after she'd been certain that his fever hadn't worsened.  


"Wait," he nearly croaked, and though the command could barely have passed as one, it stopped her in her tracks.  


"Who are you?"  


"Jeyne, your grace--Jeyne Westerling."  


She prided herself in the evenness of her voice, in the way it belied the tremors that silently plagued the rest of her body.  


"Westerling... this is your castle?"  


"Yes--my family's."  


"May I trouble you for a glass of water, Jeyne?"  


"It's no trouble--your grace," she'd been careful to add that last bit whenever it had occurred to her, had been wary of underestimating this boy's sense of entitlement lest she and her own be faced with his wrath (she soon learned that he was far less entitled that she'd originally assumed, she soon learned many things--soon loses the blessing of her ignorance).  


She held the glass up to his lips, cradled the back of his head like one would a child, her hand buried in the softness of his curls.  


He watched her still in that strange way of his, and she wondered vaguely (insipid as it may have been) whether or not _he_ thought her pretty.  


~*~

  


To this day she cannot explain how it happened or why her mother had allowed it (though only because she refuses to acknowledge what her new knowledge would make of the latter), but in those days she was his constant companion--caring for him as a mother would a treasured child, laughing with him as would any one of his burly men, and blushing under his scrutiny as would any girl who knew she was being courted (except she also knew, and all too well, that she wasn't).  


He spoke to her of Winterfell, of his three brothers and his two sisters, of the snow that was a constant blanket over the castle. She hadn't needed him to tell her how sorely he missed it.  


He asked her about herself, about what a childhood so close to the crashing waves must have been like. He asked her about her own brothers and her younger sister and she was certain she was half in love with him already  


There were times, the ones where he'd look at her in that solemn way of his, that she could have sworn he was half in love with her too (she soon learns that there were some things she'd been right about all along).  


~*~

  


He took the blame, claimed that the fault was all his and none of hers, but the truth of it was that she was the one who went to him that night--the one who stole into the rooms that were once hers and then his with a stealth she did not know she possessed.  


What she found was a broken boy so silently desolate it nearly frightened her, anchored her to that room (to her conviction, to him). He scarcely noticed when she wrapped her arms around him, when she buried his head in the crook of her neck, when she pressed her lips to his temple, his ear, his cheek...  


He scarcely noticed until her lips were meeting his own--soft and as unsure as she was. He started at the initial contact, an she blushed crimson, could have buried herself in the weight of her shame.  


"I'm sorry, I--"  


"Don't Jeyne," he whispered hoarsely, desperately. "Please..."  


And she obliged him (obliged herself), for she had always been the gentlest of her lot (to everyone but her mother's delight).  


~*~

  


Even in the haze of his own desperation he was gentle with her, careful not to frighten her with the breadth of his need for this (for _her_ ). He couldn't stop the pain that seared through her when he first entered her though, so acute it had her crying out. He stilled then, waited for her breathing to calm before he thrusted again--slowly, gently.  


When his eyes finally did meet her own she knew in that in that moment, even in the midst of his grief, he could see nothing but her ( _Jeyne, Jeyne, Jeyne..._ ).  


~*~

  


The tears that followed took her by surprise, their silent stream as unsettling to her as it was to him. She came to him of her own accord after all, had wanted this (wanted _him_ ) just as much as he did.  


"Don't," he pleaded, the pads of his fingers brushing them aside.  


She tried to stop, but his tenderness had only triggered a fresh bout, a choked sob. He kissed her cheek, the column of her throat--moved lower to the swell of her breast and her belly until he was pressing his lips against the dark curls between her legs where she was still wet with him.  


He stilled her tears then, reduced her to desperate moans and half formed gasps, did for her what she had done for him earlier that momentous night.  


~*~

  


He woke before she did the following morning (the one she still longs for, the one she still regrets), hunched over the edge of the bed and turned away from her.  


He didn't turn to her until he heard her stirring, wrapping the sheet around herself to shield her nakedness while she looked for her dress.  


"I thought about it--about what I can do to make this of as little consequence for you as possible," he started, hesitated before he continued. "I'm already betrothed you see, to one of Lord Frey's daughters."  


She said nothing, knew nothing in that moment aside from the violent pounding in her chest and the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach--heard nothing but her mother's words echoing in her ears again and again and again.  


 _you're pretty enough, not the prettiest..._   


"I thought of marrying you to one of my Bannermen--someone who I could trust to care for you and treat you kindly, if you would have agreed," he continued slowly. "But, truth be told, I can't bear the thought of you with anyone else."  


She looked up at him then, found that he had been watching her already in that piercing way of his, felt the colour rise in her cheeks at the boldness of his statement and the memory of the very things he could not bear the thought of her doing with another.  


She didn't dare speak though, even then she knew that it was best to let him determine their fate with nothing but the tip of his own tongue.  


"Will you forgive me any dishonour I have wrought upon you and--and be my wife?" He asked, blurted out the strong of words in a way that had made it difficult for her to process in those daunting moments.  


When she finally came to terms with what he had asked of her (though now she understands that what she felt she came to terms with in that moment was naught a fraction of what her agreement would entail), she could only nod her consent.  


~*~

  


When the raven bringing the bearings of his death (his _murder_ ) reaches her a year later, when it leaves her howling at the crippling breadth of her grief, it isn't her mother's words that haunts her, but _his_. She remembers words whispered against the shell of her ear, remembers being called _the loveliest_ , being told how loved she had been ( _so, so much_ ).  


She remembers, above all else, that these memories were made from the steepest of cost, that now she could not even claim that she had done _well enough_.  


It is then, and only then, that her mother's words seep through the cracks.  


~*~


End file.
